My other blog is made up of book reports. This one is social commentary not based on particular books.
I could use a better name for this blog if you've got an idea.

"No statement I make...should be interpreted as final and definitive. One or two of them may sound final and definitive...but I won't regard them as such tomorrow, and I wouldn't like you to do so today." ~ Harold Pinter (whoever he is)

As I tried to read about plays at the Twin Cities' Fringe Festival, to see if there was anything worth going into town for, I noticed that a building owner in the Cedar-Riverside neighborhood of Minneapolis is asking its tenants (a theater and a bike repair shop) to leave and will be renting the space to a mosque.

"A mosque? Right by the train stop? That seems like a great idea!" I thought. (I feel like it's almost all Somalis who use that train stop.)

I investigated more, because I did want to read about why there would be such short notice--I mean, new churches don't generally pop up quickly in the place of open businesses. Not to mention, the article I read just left it as, "losing their space for a mosque." And that seemed too theater-versus-mosque. I wanted to know more about why the building owners were choosing whom.

Well...turns out it's not a new mosque for the community.

Just an old mosque, that it sounds like might have already had train-stop-front property.

By the way, the building owners in question are Sherman Associates & Fine Associates. Sherman owns the Riverside Plaza (where I think lots of the apartments are) and is not only "redeveloping" them, but putting in a new parking lot for them (which is why the mosque's old building is coming down). I think this might be partly because Fine Associates is closing parking/driveways that people who live in Riverside Plaza had been using? And then, a reason Fine Associates is going to rent their extra building to the mosque is that it saves Sherman Associates money. And Sherman Associates is willing to hold back on suing Fine Associates if they get to save money. Or something like that. (I think Fine Associates wouldn't get to close the parking/driveways if Sherman Associates tried to stop them.) I'm not sure. Something like that, anyway.

I saw the perception that ... if mothers aren’t completely selfless and also perfect then they will ruin their child ...

This is really tied up in with both of my parents', as well as my paternal grandparents' + aunts/uncles', frequent classist statements about childbearing. "There oughtta be a way to require a license to have kids." And the "stupid" people who wouldn't get a license are almost ALWAYS middle-or-lower in class.

Now that I'm doing more leftist readings, I'm learning that most of these behaviors my family members attributed to 100% stupidity, and yet almost always pointed out in poorer people, were more likely 80% influenced by effects of poverty.

BUT, that doesn't provide me a lifetime of positive alternative models to emulate. I just read about poorer people raising kids.

Now I'm looking at having significantly less wealth & income than the rest of my family. I can't see another way about life that I can stand the thought of.

Back to Alara's quote about "ruining" my child...there's this part of me that, thanks to my parent, is aware of the upper-middle-to-upper-class escape from being completely selfless. You pay to have other people help you raise your child "right."

But...society and my parents at large definitely gave me this message that I have to be completely selfless if I'm going to raise children without enough money, to avoid "ruining" them.

Alara also wrote:

I saw the perception that ... if mothers are completely selfless then they are doormats...

So I'm avoiding having any. Damned if I know how to be selfless. (That's the other thing I learned by observation. Not being selfless. The money ensured they didn't have to do that to "not ruin me.")